


may fill your heart with the sweetest joys

by elumish



Series: those who form his fire-side [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, The West Wing
Genre: Gen, Long Lost/Secret Relatives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:22:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26762044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elumish/pseuds/elumish
Summary: Once upon a time, the Bartlets had a son.
Relationships: Abbey Bartlet/Jed Bartlet
Series: those who form his fire-side [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2157402
Comments: 59
Kudos: 277





	may fill your heart with the sweetest joys

**Author's Note:**

> Apparenty this is the only kind of story I know how to write.
> 
> Also, the timelines are on this are squidgy at best. This is set between episode 1 and episode 2 of season 2 of Stargate Atlantis, and...sometime before Sam left in the West Wing. The years didn't perfectly line up, but they worked well enough.

Once upon a time, the Bartlets had a son.

\--

John Sheppard has been back on Earth for a sum total of six hours and thirty-nine minutes, and he would like nothing more than to be off the Earth again. He hadn’t had solid plans for coming home, not when they spent the last year sure as shit that they were never entering the Milky Way galaxy again, but spending 100% of the time moving from windowless room to windowless room in an underground bunker was not what he would have chosen.

Though, to be fair, there was a non-zero chance they were going to arrest him as soon as he set foot back on Earth.

There’s time left for that, though, he thinks.

Right now he’s sitting in his third conference room of the day, lightheaded as fuck because they took about a liter of blood to run every test possible, hoping they’ll let him eat sometime soon.

He doesn’t even know what time it is, Earth-time; his watch is on Atlantis Standard Time, when it’s 0427, and he can’t find a goddamn clock anywhere to reset it to something useful. 

The door opens, and he stands when he sees it’s Colonel Carter, who’s one of the few Earth-stationed officers he actually likes, based on his very brief experience with her. She waves him back down, sitting across from him with a file in front of her. “They just told me what time it is, your time, Major Sheppard, so I’ll try to keep this short. You’re going to spend the next few days being debriefed, but all I need from you is whether there’s any sort of immediate threat coming from Pegasus.”

John rubs his face, feeling like his brain is made of stretched chewing gum. “What are you classifying as immediate?”

“Let’s start with next six months.”

John shakes his head. “Probably not. The main threat is the Wraith, but the only way they’re finding Earth is if they take Atlantis. If that happens, then yes, ma’am, they’re an immediate threat.”

She opens her file, then asks, “They’re the...vampires?”

“Close enough.”

“And there’s no one else?”

“Most of the societies have been completely decimated by the Wraith; they cull them periodically and destroy any technological advancements that might threaten them. Anyone that has any level of technological progress would have no interest in us. They want to protect their own, ma’am.”

Col Carter nods, making a note in the file, then looks him in the eye and says, “There’s been some talk that they’re going to find some weird things in your labs. This is all CYA so we can run interference when the hordes descend tomorrow, but I need to know if you’re on something you shouldn’t be. I’ve been on a frontline team; I know what sort of weird shit you pick up. If you have a good enough excuse, it won’t go on your disciplinary records.”

He’s willing to bet a hell of a lot of money that there are things they would keep off her disciplinary records that they wouldn’t keep off his, not with the black marks he already has against him. But all he says is, “No, ma’am. We run a tight ship, and isolation protocols are sketchy at best when you’re all stuck in a self-contained city, so we’re careful about that sort of thing. I got bitten by some sort of...bug, and it left some protein markers behind.”

“Okay.” She snaps the file shut and stands, and he stands too. “That’s all I needed to hear. An airman will escort you to a room. We don’t need you until 0900 tomorrow.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He hesitates, then gestures at his watch and asks, “What, uh, time is it now? Everything I have is on AST.”

“It’s 1133,” she tells him with a quick look at her own watch. She smiles. “We’re glad you made it back, Major.”

He says, “Me too, ma’am,” and it’s almost the truth.

\--

“What’s next?”

Leo closes the PDB and says, “Yesterday evening, we had our first returns from Atlantis, including Dr. Elizabeth Weir, Major John Sheppard, and Dr. Rodney McKay.”

“He’s the Canadian, right?”

“Sir?”

“McKay. He’s Canadian, right?”

“Yes, sir. But he’s been working for us for most of his adult life.”

“And that means we trust him?”

“Yes, sir.”

Jed taps on the desk in front of him. “I know Weir. And Major Sheppard? Didn’t we leave someone else in charge?”

“Uh, yes sir. There was an...incident, soon after they arrived. We don’t have all the details yet.”

“And when will we  _ have _ all the details?”

“They’re being debriefed today. We should have a clearer picture by tonight.”

“Good.”

The door opens, and Charlie sticks his head in to say, “Leo, you have a call from a General Landry. He said it’s urgent.”

“That’s the head of Stargate Command,” Leo explains, standing and heading towards his office.

“If we’re being attacked, I don’t want to hear about it,” Jed calls after him, and Leo is smiling when he closes the door to his office.

Margaret is standing in his office when he gets there, and she explains, “Major General Hank Landry, US Air Force. He’s been in charge of the Stargate Program for the last eight months.”

“Yes, thank you, Margaret.” She stands there, staring at him, until he gestures at the door to her office. “Get out, so I can actually take the call.”

“Yes. Right.”

Once she’s out of the room, he picks up his phone and says, “This is Leo McGarry.”

“Mr. McGarry,” the man on the other end says, “this is General Hank Landry. I’m afraid we have a...situation.”

Leo wants a drink.

There has rarely been a moment when he  _ doesn’t _ want a drink, since he became sober, but few things make the urge stronger than one of the men in charge of interplanetary defense saying that they have a situation.

But he’s not going to have a drink, so he just pinches the bridge of his nose, takes a deep breath, and asks, “What kind of situation?”

“One of the people we just had return from Atlantis is a man named Major John Sheppard,” the General says, and then he stops talking.

God save him from pansy-ass generals who don’t want to give bad news. “What about him?” Leo prompts, when it becomes clear the General isn’t going to keep talking.

“I’m not sure how to say this,” the General says. “As part of standard procedure, we run a standard battery of tests on anyone who is returning from another planet. We added a few extra tests because of the length of time spent off-world, and where they were. One of those was a complete DNA sequencing.”

“Tell me he isn’t part alien.”

“No, sir.” The General hesitates again, and Leo hopes he isn’t this uncertain when he’s actually commanding people. “As part of a new program to try to locate other holders of the ATA gene, we also ran his DNA through the databases we have access to, in the hopes of identifying relatives who might also have the gene. And we got a hit.”

Leo leans back in his chair, fully fed up with whatever this is. “Shouldn’t that be a good thing?”

“No, sir, it wasn’t that we found other people with the ATA gene. We found  _ him _ .”

“So he’s in a DNA database. Why do we care?”

“It wasn’t just a genetics database, sir. It was CODIS’s National Missing Person DNA Database. I--we’re faxing over the result now, sir.”

As he’s saying that, the door to Margaret’s door opens, and she walks in carrying a couple pieces of paper. She sets them down on his desk, looking unusually somber, then walks back out of the office.

The top page is a security cover page, marked SECRET and LIMDIS, and then there’s one page after it, and he wants a drink, he wants a drink so badly.

“Who knows about this?”

“The technician who ran the DNA; my SNCO; and Colonel Sam Carter, my number two.”

“Have you informed Sheppard?”

“No, sir. I thought we should get it to you first.”

“Keep it that way. And Sheppard. Where is he?”

“In the Mountain.”

That’s where Stargate Command is, Leo remembers: Cheyenne Mountain Complex, underneath NORAD. “Keep him there.”

“Yes, sir.”

Leo hangs up and stares down at the paper sitting, damningly, on his desk. He wants a drink.

Instead, he stands and walks back into the Oval Office.

Jed is reading something, but he looks up and clocks Leo’s expression immediately, saying, “Oh, God, tell me it’s not that guy Anubis again.”

“No, sir.”

Jed stands. “Leo, are you okay?”

“You might want to sit for this, sir.”

Jed sits, gesturing rather dramatically, and says, “I’m sitting, Leo. What’s going on?”

“They found Edward.”

An eyebrow goes up. “Did we lose a--”

Leo steps forward and puts the paper on the desk, sliding it towards Jed. “They found  _ Edward _ , sir.”

Jed doesn’t look down at the paper. He doesn’t look anywhere but at Leo. “They found a body?”

“Not a body.”

That gets him a blink, and then Jed’s eyes dart down to the paper, which he pulls towards him. “That means--”

“Major John Sheppard, United States Air Force.”

“This is a joke.”

“No, sir.”

“This is a  _ joke _ .”

“No, sir. Jed. They found Edward.”

“‘It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad,’” Jed says quietly, and he is shaking, Leo can see, “‘for this thy brother was lost, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.’ I need--I need--”

Leo pours him a glass of water, then heads to the door to the outer office to tell Charlie, “We need the First Lady here. Make it clear it’s important.”

Charlie nods and picks up the phone, and Leo shuts the door again.

Jed is drinking water, at least, even though he’s so pale Leo is worried he’s going to faint. “What do you want to tell the senior staff?” Leo asks.

“I want to tell my  _ wife _ first,” Jed says sharply, “if that’s alright with you.”

“Of course.”

“I--” Jed shakes his head. “Get me everything you can on him. I want to know what my son’s been doing, all these years.”

\--

Once upon a time, for seven hours, the Bartlets had a son.

\--

John is ten minutes away from killing someone for some fresh air.

He’s been in meetings since 0900 Earth Time--Mountain Time--and other than a brief break to get something to eat at around 1300, he hasn’t moved from the conference room they’ve sequestered him in.

Col Carter, at least, isn’t a pain to deal with, and she’s handling most of the initial debrief, but Gen Landry keeps staring at him like he’s an alien--or a guy who killed his CO--and he hasn’t seen anyone from Atlantis in almost 24 hours.

He never thought he’d want to see McKay so much.

It’s almost 2000 when Col Carter says, “That’s it for the day.”

“Thanks,” John says, and coughs. He’s talked more today than probably in the last month combined, and he sounds like hell, but he’s fully aware that tomorrow is going to be more of the same, but probably with people not nearly as nice as Col Carter. “Any chance I’m allowed off base tonight? I haven’t gotten any direction on where I’m allowed to go.”

Col Carter shakes her head, giving him an apologetic look. “You’re still in mandatory quarantine and restricted to base.”

Well, there goes John’s plan to drink something better than the rotgut Zelenka brews in one of the labs that he pretends doesn’t exist. Though at least the food here is better than most of the shit they managed to make on Atlantis. Not-potatoes are only digestible with not-cinnamon, and that is a flavor combination he’s never managed to enjoy.

It’ll be a relief to have even semi-regular supply runs from Earth, even though John is increasingly convinced he won’t be on Atlantis for them.

He just wants some goddamn beer, to get more than an hour and a half of uninterrupted sleep, and to get back to Atlantis as soon as humanly possible. He’ll settle for some food and to maybe get out of this godforsaken mountain sometime in the not too distant future.

\--

CJ Cregg truly wishes, from the bottom of her heart, that someone would tell her what the fuck is going on.

It’s not just that the senior staff meeting was cancelled, which is unusual but not unprecedented, but the President has been holed up with the First Lady in the Oval Office all day, and that doesn’t make any sense. If it was a national security issue, he would be in the sit room without FLOTUS; if it was a health thing he would be in the residence.

If it was a policy thing, they would be there. 

So now she’s standing in front of the gaggle, answering, “I don’t know,” for the third time after someone asks ‘Why did the President cancel the day’s schedule?”

“I’m serious, CJ,” Julia says, “the President canceled his schedule and we haven’t heard anything from the Oval Office all day. What’s going on?”

“And I’m serious,” CJ answers, “I haven’t gotten any new answers since the last time someone asked me about what the President has been doing with his day. Have you seen someone walk over and hand me a piece of paper--”

As if on cue to screw her over, Carol walks up next to her with a folded piece of paper. CJ unfolds it just enough to read what’s on it without flashing it to the entire press gaggle, hoping it doesn’t read ‘400 deaths in Iowa’ or something of the like; instead, it reads ‘POTUS, NOW’.

“And that’s all I have for you for the day,” she says, and follows Carol out of the press room to a chorus of thanks.

Sam is waiting for her outside the press room, looking antsy; as they walk, he asks, “Do you know what’s going on?”

“Sam, I just got walked out of a press briefing because I got handed a piece of paper that reads ‘POTUS, NOW’. I have been given no information beyond that, so why would you think that I would know what’s going on?”

“Because you’re a fount of knowledge,” Sam offers, and CJ pats him on the shoulder to reassure him that’s the right answer. “But seriously, you don’t have any idea what’s going on?”

“Seriously, Sam, I am as much in the dark as you are.”

“Good. I mean, not good, but--”

“Quit while you’re ahead, Sam.”

“Right.”

Josh and Toby are already outside the Oval when Sam and CJ get there, and Toby asks, “Do you know what this is?”

“I have no more information than I could give the press five minutes ago or Sam two minutes ago,” CJ says. “I know what you know.”

The door to the Oval opens, and Leo gestures them in. He looks pale. The President looks pale.

“Leo, what’s--”

“All of you, in.”

They all shuffle in, and then Charlie closes the door behind him.

\--

Once upon a time, for seven hours and twelve minutes, the Bartlets had a son.

\--

“All of you know my history,” the President says. He’s standing in the middle of the room, and there’s a glass of water on the desk, and he is very pale. CJ thinks he might pass out. “When I was a governor, twelve months after Elizabeth was born, we had a son. Edward. He disappeared the day he was born, from the hospital. This morning, I was informed that they have located him.”

CJ knows that story--they all know that story. Everyone knows the story of the President’s Lost Son, Edward Bartlet, thought dead the day he was born. She can’t imagine what it was like to go all these years without confirmation, but it seems to her that confirmation would be worse.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she says, and knows it’s not enough.

“No, I--” The President shakes his head, looking a little lost.

“He’s alive,” Leo says.

CJ thinks she mishears that at first, but Josh and Sam and Toby are staring at him with the same feeling expression she’s pretty sure is on her face, and she realizes, holy shit, the President’s son is alive. “Is he here?” CJ asks. “Or have you--I mean, have you met him?”

“As of right now,” Leo says, “he hasn’t been notified of who he is.”

“You’re telling me that Edward Bartlet is not currently aware that he’s Edward Bartlet?” Josh demands.

Toby looks like he’s having a conniption, just very quietly.

“I’m telling you that, right now, beyond the four of you, there are eight people who know that Edward Bartlet is alive, and two of them are in this room right now.”

“What’s his name?”

“What?”

“What’s his name?” Sam asks again. “I’m assuming it’s not Edward Bartlet, so...what’s his name?”

“Major John Sheppard, US Air Force.”

Apparently getting past his conniption, Toby asks, “Where is he? Right now, where is the man who apparently doesn’t know he’s the President’s son?”

“Cheyenne Mountain Complex.”

“He’s part of NORAD?” Sam asks.

“Not exactly,” Leo said. “There’s something else you need to know.”

\--

Something is going on.

John has been in charge of a base for long enough to know when base operations are running weirdly, and Sam Carter has been hovering a little too close given the fact that she’s the number two and he’s a Major trapped here on mandatory quarantine who still might be brought up on charges for killing his CO.

Finally, when he’s done scraping the last of his mashed actual-potatoes off of his plate, he asks, “Is this the standard welcome wagon, or am I special, ma’am?”

Col Carter blinks up at him from where she’s been enthusiastically finishing her jello, and then she gives him a rueful smile and says, “That obvious, huh. There are some...complications.”

“Should I expect the MPs?”

“The--no, you’re not going to be prosecuted for anything that happened while you were in Atlantis, as far as I’m aware. It’s just something you’re not cleared to know yet.”

John has played that game before--it was most of his life in Antarctica--so, paradoxically, that answer relaxes him. These are people who know how to play the classification game, and he thinks Col Carter at least is pretty unlikely to intentionally fuck him over.

So he just says, “Thank you, ma’am.”

“I know this isn’t the ideal way to spend your first few days back on her,” she says apologetically. “Do you have family, or uh--” She cuts herself off with a grimace, and he thinks,  _ oh _ . She realized he’s one of  _ those _ Sheppards.

So he just shakes his head and says, “My family isn’t really the visiting type, and most of my Earth-bound friends are probably still in Afghanistan. Though,” he realizes, “I’m not actually sure about that last bit.”

An airman approaches and, at Col Carter’s nod, hands her a folded piece of paper. Col Carter glances at it then, with a relieved look, says, “We’re needed in the General’s office.”

They’re let in immediately, which is probably the first time John hasn’t had to wait outside a General’s office in his life, and Gen Landry says, “Sit.”

John sits.

“You’re being flown out to Washington D.C. tonight,” Gen Landry tells him, and John knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s going to be charged. Now he’s just pretty sure he’s going to be convicted of something worse than he expected, if they want him in D.C. to do it.

Col Carter is giving the General a surprised look next to him, and he’s glad that she at least didn’t lie to him about it, if she’s this surprised.

“My team, sir?” he asks the General. “Can I say goodbye to Dr. Weir and Dr. McKay?”

The General waves a dismissive hand at that. “Sure. The flight’s at 2100 out of Peterson. Colonel, you’ll be escorting him. Major Davis will be meeting you at Langley.”

That was a truly weird thing for a General to have briefed him on, John thinks once they’re dismissed, but the Stargate Program is also notoriously weird compared to the Big Air Force, so it is what it is.

This whole experience has been weird as fuck.

He finds McKay in his room, where he’s sitting cross-legged on his bed with his laptop in front of him. McKay looks up when John walks in, then says, “About time you found me.”

“I’ve been in meetings all day.”

“Yeah, yeah.” McKay waves that off, then asks, “What’s up? Or did you just want to find someone else who hates being trapped underground.”

“If I’d wanted that, I would have found Elizabeth.” John spins the single chair in the room so he can straddle it and face McKay. “Look, I’m being called in to Washington. I’m leaving tonight.”

“Tonight?” McKay’s voice goes up half an octave at the word, and John would tease him about it if circumstances were different.

“Yeah. I have a 2100 fight out of Peterson.”

“When are you getting back?”

John starts to say something light and dismissive, then changes his mind and says, “Chances are, I’m not.”

“What do you mean? Are you being transferred?”

“More likely, I’m being arrested.”

McKay surges up at that, looking like he’s about to leap over his laptop and out of bed. “ _ Arrested _ ? What are they arresting you for?”

“Take you pick, but more likely than not, it’s for killing Sumner.”

“You had to do that.”

“He was my CO, McKay, and I shot him. And they’ve never dealt with the Wraith.”

“We’ll fight it.”

John is shaking his head before McKay finishes talking. “Atlantis needs you. And they need you to play nice with whoever they put in charge. Whoever it is, they probably won’t be as flexible as I am. You’re going to need to figure out how to work around that. Atlantis needs you, and it needs you doing your job and not fighting with whoever it is. And make sure they don’t sideline Elizabeth.”

“Tell me you’re not going to just lay down and take it.”

“I have a lot of black marks already.” John stands. “I need to go find Elizabeth. I’ll call you if I can.”

“You’d better.”

\--

Once upon a time, for seven hours, twelve minutes, and eight seconds, the Bartlets had a son.

\--

No matter what the tabloids like to imply, Zoey Bartlet is not an idiot.

She may not be her parents, but when her Mom calls and says, “I need you to come home,” in  _ that _ tone of voice, she knows something is wrong.

It’s the same tone of voice her mom used before they told them that Zoey’s dad has MS, and when she explained that Zoey’s dad was probably going to win the Presidency.

Her only classes tomorrow are massive lectures where the professor couldn’t care less who shows up, so she just informs the Secret Service so they can head over to the White House.

Zoey’s the only one of her siblings there when she arrives, and she hopes beyond hope that it’s not something involving her. She hasn’t even been slipping her bodyguards recently, no matter how irritating they are.

Her mom’s in the Residence, sitting with all the lights off in one of the living rooms, a mug of something clutched in her hands. She looks up when Zoey walks in, and Zoey’s first thought is that she looks terrible.

“Did someone die?” Zoey blurts out, then immediately regrets it, because the answer might be  _ yes _ .

“What?” Her mom blinks at her, then looks down at the mug she’s holding like she forgot it existed. “Oh, no. No, this is good news, but I want to wait for your sisters to get here, too.”

“Is it Dad?”

“Your father is fine.” Her mom sets the mug down on the nearby table, then gestures for Zoey to come join her on the couch. When Zoey sits down next to her, her mom pulls her close, wrapping an arm around her.

It takes a couple hours for Ellie and Elizabeth to show up, most of which are spent with her mom opening her mouth and then saying nothing, like that’s not the most frustrating thing she can be doing. Whatever it is, her mom should just spit it out.

There was never this much secrecy in New Hampshire.

It’s only once everyone is there that her dad shows up, and he looks almost as shaken as her mom, which is a fully unnerving thing to see. Her dad is the unshakable one.

“I have something to tell you,” he says, sitting down at one of the lone chairs. He’s not looking at any of them. “We found Edward, alive.”

For a minute, Zoey doesn’t know what he’s talking about. 

It’s not that she doesn’t know who Edward was--who Edward is--but he predates her. He predates  _ Ellie _ . And he was always more a legend than a person: The Brother That Wasn’t.

But she’s never really thought about Edward in the context of possibly  _ existing. _ He’s not alive. Everyone knows that.

It’s Elizabeth who says, flatly, “You’re joking.”

Her dad’s eyebrows go up, and he asks, “Do I look like you’re joking?”

“I can’t think of any  _ other _ reason you would be saying that--”

“His name is John Sheppard.”

“His  _ name _ is  _ Edward Bartlet _ ,” Elizabeth says, getting louder now, “and just because someone showed up saying that they’re the  _ President’s son _ \--”

“He doesn’t know.”

“What?”

“He doesn’t know,” her mom repeats. “Or if he does, he hasn’t contacted us.”

“Jesus,” Ellie breathes next to her.

“So what?” Zoey asks. “What now?”

“He’ll be here tomorrow,” her dad says.

“How, if he doesn’t know that he’s--” Grimacing, Elizabeth cuts herself off before she can finish.

“He’s a Major in the Air Force,” her dad explains. “Major John Sheppard. He’s in Colorado as of a couple days ago, which is where they realized it. And as Commander in Chief, I do have some say in where our service members are sent.”

“What if he doesn’t want to?” Zoey asks. “Be Edward Bartlet, I mean.”

“Well,” Elli says, “it’s a bit late for that.”

\--

The flight from Peterson to Langley AFB isn’t the worst flight John’s ever been on, but it’s probably after only the flight from Afghanistan after Lyle and That Time With The Bug. he and Col Carter are the highest ranking people on the flight, and so they’re given as wide a berth as is possible on a flight like that.

Col Carter sleeps with the ease of long practice. John stays awake with the nerves of someone who hates being on anything being piloted by anyone who isn’t him.

It’s not that the pilot is bad. It’s just that, well, John is better.

They land at Langley and fuck-awful-o’clock and are greeted by Major Davis, who says, “We’re driving up to northern Virginia tonight and you’ll be staying at Fort A.P. Hill. Sorry we can’t get you better accommodations, but we’re trying to keep this low profile. You both have your dress blues?”

They do, though John figures there’s at least a 50% chance it doesn’t fit. He hasn’t worn it since he left for Atlantis, and he’s lost weight since then. They all did.

He supposes he won’t look his best for his court-martial. 

Though this is seeming less and less like what he expected and more and more like there’s something else wrong.

The drive to Fort A.P. Hill only takes a couple hours--it’s light on traffic this late at night--and they get set up on what he’s betting are some of the nicer rooms on the Fort. He can’t feel the hum of Atlantis, but at least he has a window, and he manages a few REM cycles before he needs to be up again.

He goes running in the morning, because he feels like all of his joints are locking up from lack of movement, and then he showers and changes into his dress blues before meeting Col Carter and Maj Davis at 0800.

It’s only once they’re in the car again that Maj. Davis turns to John and says, “We’re going to the White House.”

John’s first, semi-hysterical thought, is  _ maybe they’re going to try me for treason _ .

His first non-hysterical thought is that none of this makes any fucking sense. So he asks, just to make sure he heard right, “The White House?”

“You have a meeting with Leo McGarry, the President’s Chief of Staff, at 1100.”

“About Atlantis?” he guesses.

Maj. Davis gives an awkward shrug. “I haven’t been told what the meeting is about.”

“Do I need a copy of my mission reports?” John looks down at his empty hands. “I don’t have anything prepared.”

“Not that they told me.”

That’s not particularly reassuring, but John has BS-ed meetings before, and at least the President’s Chief of Staff is unlikely to personally shoot him if he says the wrong thing.

Probably.

There’s one hairy moment when John forgets his CAC exists--in his defense, it’s not like they use them on Atlantis--but they get into the White House without too much difficulty. John has been here before, but only on a school trip when he was thirteen, and the area they’re in is not the part they show the private school brats.

A blonde woman is waiting inside the entrance for them; she looks between the three of them, then asks, “Major Davis?”

Maj. Davis steps forward and offers a hand, saying, “Yes, ma’am.”

The woman shakes his hand, saying, “I’m Donna Moss, senior assistant to Josh Lyman, Deputy Chief of Staff. And you must be...”

“Colonel Sam Carter,” Col Carter says, and she shakes Donna’s hand too.

“Major John Sheppard.”

“They’re having me show you to Leo McGarry’s office because apparently people get lost around here, and it would look bad if we misplaced a Colonel. No disrespect to your navigational skills, which I’m sure are fantastic.”

John likes her, even though he’s still fairly certain she’s leading him to his court-martial.

There are a ton of people all over the hallways, and he has the disconcerting thought that there are more people in this building than in the entirety of Atlantis. He’s not used to crowded places anymore; Pegasus is distinctly lacking in them, and it’s not like Antarctica had much of anyone other than penguins.

“You’re all in the Air Force?” Donna asks as they walk. “You’d think I’d be better at distinguishing that sort of thing, working at the White House.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Col Carter says.

“And what do you do for the Air Force?”

“Deep space telemetry,” Col Carter answers, and butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. 

“Ah,” Donna says delicately, with the acceptance of someone who is used to hearing bullshit excuses for classified things. She stops them in front of an open door, then says, “This is Leo McGarry’s office.” She sticks her head in and says to the red-haired woman at the desk, “Margaret, I have Colonel Carter, Major Davis, and Major Sheppard, from the Air Force. Josh asked me to escort them here.”

They’re ushered into the office, and then the woman opens the other door and says, “I have Colonel Carter, Major Davis, and Major Sheppard for you.”

Whoever is inside that office says something, in a deep low voice, and then the woman comes back out and says, “Major Sheppard, you can go in.”

That’s a hell of a speedy reaction for POTUS’s Chief of Staff, and it’s worrying as anything that Maj Davis and Col Carter aren’t coming in with him, but John sucks it up, walks in, and stands at attention in front of the desk.

The woman shuts the door behind him.

The man behind the desk is smaller than John expected, and older, but there’s a presence to him. He’s powerful and he knows it. It’s the same sort of presence Gen O’Neill has.

“John Sheppard?” the man asks. Before John can answer, he continues, “I’m Leo McGarry. Sit, please.”

John sits. He wishes he had his mission reports with him. He wishes he had been given some time to prepare.

He wishes he was back in Atlantis.

“Have you been told why you’re here, son?” The last word seems to slip out unintentionally, given how McGarry’s lips twist at the end of it.

John shakes his head. “No, sir.”

“Okay.” McGarry stares at John for a minute, then shakes his head and seems to collapse in on himself just a little. “Okay. I don’t know how to say this, so I’m going to just say it. Have you heard of Edward Bartlet?”

McGarry could have asked him if he had sucked Gen O’Neill off in a bathroom in McMurdo to get sent to Atlantis, and he would have been less surprised.

“Yes, sir,” John manages finally. “The President’s dead son, right? Or, I mean--he went missing, I think, sir. I’m sorry, sir, I was young when that happened; I’m not particularly familiar with the details.”

“Edward disappeared from the hospital seven hours after he was born. His DNA was entered into the CODIS National Missing Persons DNA Database. Yesterday, there was a match.”

This is all fascinating, but John has no earthly idea why anyone is telling him this. “Sir?”

“It’s you, son,” McGarry says. “You’re Edward Bartlet.”

This is, John decides suddenly, the most batshit crazy hallucination he’s ever had in his life.

But just in case it’s not, he says, very politely, “I’m sorry, sir?”

“Yeah,” McGarry says, “I probably wasn’t the right person to tell you this.” And then he shouts, “ _ Margaret _ .”

The door opens and the redhead sticks her head back in the room. “Yes?”

“Tell Charlie that I have Major Sheppard with me, to see the President.”

Margaret nods and shuts the door again. John stares at McGarry. “The President?” he asks. He sounds like he’s about to pass out. He  _ feels _ like he’s about to pass out. “Am I not here to get arrested?”

McGarry’s eyebrows go up. “Why would you get arrested?”

“I...shot my CO. Sir.”

“Do you want to be arrested?”

“No, sir.”

McGarry spreads his arms out, as though to say, well, then. And then he says, “Well, then.”

Before John has to figure out what to say to that, Margaret opens the door again and says, “You can go in.”

McGarry stands up and walks past John to open the other door, and John stands and follows him because what else is there to do, and then he’s standing in the Oval Office, and there is the President of the United States, standing in front of the Resolute Desk.

John comes to attention.

“At ease,” the President says. “John, right?”

John relaxes a fraction of an inch. He respects very few superior officers, but this is the  _ President of the United States _ . “Yes, sir.”

“Did he tell you?” He looks at McGarry. “Did you tell him?”

“Yes, Mr. President,” McGarry says. “I don’t think he believed me.”

“I wouldn’t have believed you, either,” the President says. He looks at John again. “Not how you thought your day would be going, is it?”

“No, sir.”

“Me, neither. Yesterday, I mean--I didn’t expect my Chief of Staff to walk in here and tell me that my son was alive.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” John says, and he can’t believe he’s arguing with the President of the United States, but the longer this goes on, the bigger a mess it’s going to be. “But I think there’s been some sort of mistake.”

“There hasn’t,” the President says, and he sounds almost apologetic.

“I’ll leave you to it,” McGarry says, and disappears back into his office. John barely notices him go.

“Your Colonel can confirm it--Colonel Carter. She’s seen the--” He waves a hand. “The results. Apparently they were looking for relatives who might have the ATA gene.”

Of course they were. Of course this goddamn gene is the cause of every mess he’s been in in the last year.

And then it hits John, all at once, that this is  _ real _ . He’s really standing in the Oval Office with the President of the United States telling him that he’s his long lost son.

Somehow, it’s not even the weirdest conversation he’s had in his life.

The President is looking at him now, watching him, and John realizes he hasn’t said anything in maybe a bit too long. So he makes himself swallow and say, “Oh.”

“Why don’t you sit down,” the President offers.

John sits down on a remarkably uncomfortable couch, and the President sits on the couch across from them, and John tries very hard to breathe.

He’s good at BSing his way out of situations where he has some idea of what’s going on, and what he wants. Right now, he has neither.

“What does this mean?” he asks finally, then adds, belatedly, “Sir.”

“I think, given the circumstances, we can dispense the sir,” the President says. “Part of that depends on what you want to do. Right now, there are four women who are very anxious to meet you waiting in the Residence, and I think they might murder me if I don’t bring you there soon.”

“Four?”

“My wife and daughters,” the President explains, and John is viscerally relieved that he didn’t use the words ‘mother’ or ‘sisters’. “If you’d like, my Press Secretary can walk into the Press Room and announce that you’ve been found.” John can’t help his shudder at that thought, and the President grins at him. “Yeah, somehow I thought not. There’s going to be an unavoidable conversation with the Secret Service soon, and my communications people are going to want to talk to you.”

“I’m--” John swallows. “I’m sorry, sir, but you do know where I’m stationed, right? Or at least where I was stationed. And I assume you know about the black marks on my file.”

“For trying to save your men, in Afghanistan. If there’s a black mark I’m comfortable with my communications people defending, it’s that.”

“My point is, sir, that I don’t have a posting that’s particularly conducive to being in the public eye. And, I mean. I hardly think it’s the sort of record your family would particularly want to be associated with.” He grimaces as soon as the words are out; he sounds young and insecure.

“Son,” the President says, and John twitches at the word before he can stop himself. “You’re my child. However you were raised, whatever you’ve done with your life--and believe me, I’ve read it all--you are my child, and I’ve been hoping to see you again every day since you were born. My best hope was that I would find you in heaven. I’m not willing to give you up that easily now that I’ve found you again on Earth.”

“I’m not Catholic,” John says, before his brain reconnects with his mouth.

The President laughs. “I hope you’re a Democrat, at least.”

John makes a face at that. “I haven’t followed American politics in a long time,” he admits. “I’m not even sure where I’m registered to vote.”

“Ah, well.”

“I hate to ask this,” President says, “but your family?”

“Mom died when I was young, and I haven’t seen my dad or my brother since I graduated college and joined the Air Force.”

“Wife? Girlfriend?”

“Divorced,” John admits to the Catholic President of the United States. “And commanding a remote military outpost doesn’t leave a lot of opportunities for dating, sir.”

The President doesn’t comment on him being divorced, which he appreciates; he really doesn’t want to talk about Nancy with people he knows, much less the President.

The President might be planning to, but before he gets a chance, one of the doors not to McGarry’s office opens, and a young Black man says, “Sorry to interrupt, sir, but the First Lady is on the phone for you.”

“Thank you, Charlie.” The President looks at John and, with an apologetic smile, says, “I guess our time’s up.”

\--

“CJ,” Danny Concannon says from the doorway to her office, and CJ briefly considers the merits of doing away with freedom of the press.

What she says is, “What can I do for you, Danny?”

“The President’s schedule is cleared for a second day in a row.”

“I have no new information on the President’s schedule,” CJ recites, then goes back to the million page report sitting on her desk.

“There are also rumors,” Danny says, and CJ really truly considers punching him, “that the First Lady and all three kids are holed up in the Residence.”

“I don’t comment on the President’s family.”

“ _ And _ there are rumors that Donna Moss was seen escorting three Air Force officers to Leo McGarry’s office, where they’ve been holed up ever since.”

If CJ ever finds out where these rumors are coming from, she’s going to shake the leaker, and then also Danny for good measure.

“Would the White House like to comment on these rumors?”

CJ looks back up at him at that. “Would we like to comment on rumors that the President of the United States is meeting with members of the military? The military of which, I might add, he is the Commander in Chief.”

Danny gives her an unrepentant shrug and says, “You know your ‘no comment’ routine isn’t going to fly for much longer with the President’s schedule, right? We  _ will _ find out what’s going on, and we’ll be a lot less pissed if you tell us first.”

“But then what would you get paid to do?” CJ says. “I have no comment, Danny. Get out of my office.”

As soon as he’s gone, CJ takes off towards Leo’s office. Normally a meeting like that wouldn’t be particular cause for alarm, but knowing what she does about what this really is about, it seems like something they need to head off as early as possible.

Two Air Force officers are sitting in Margaret’s office, not saying anything, and CJ isn’t sure John Sheppard is one of the two of them, so she just asks Margaret, “Can I go in?”

Margaret nods.

CJ heads into the office and closes the door behind her before saying, “Danny Concannon is asking about the President’s schedule.”

Leo waves a hand at that. “Deal with it.”

“He’s also asking about the Air Force officers you have stashed in here.” She lowers her voice, then asks, “Was that him?”

That gets Leo to actually look up at her with one of his flat stares to ask, “Would I have the President’s son waiting outside my office?”

“So no?”

“No. He’s in with the President. Danny’s asking about the Air Force officers in my office?”

“Yes.”

“This place is a goddamn sieve.” Leo shakes his head. “Stall him for as long as possible. I don’t know what we’re doing yet.”

“You don’t know what we’re doing yet?”

“The President wants to leave it up to the--to Sheppard. You know how he is about family.”

“I also know how long we’re going to be able to hide that we’ve found Edward Bartlet, which is not very. It’s going to come out, Leo, and we need to be ahead of it.”

“I agree,” Leo says. “Have Toby start drafting remarks. But we’re not putting out anything until the President tells us what’s going to happen.”

“Yes, sir.” CJ glances at the door to where the two Air Force officers are waiting, then asks, “Are they…?”

“Are they?”

“With the…?” Not wanting to say the word ‘alien’ out loud in Leo’s office, she gestures vaguely in the shape of a ring.

“Yes.”

“Have either of them ever...?”

“She has.”

Leo is starting to look impatient, so CJ leaves, exiting through the door that won’t take her past the officers again. She doesn’t know if she can look them in the face without blurting out “What do aliens look like”, so this is a safer bet.

Toby is reading a report when she gets to his office, and she walks in and closes the door and says, “He’s here.”

“Come in,” Toby says, turning the page. “I’m not busy at all.”

“He’s here,” CJ repeats. 

Toby looks up at her. “Who’s here?”

“Him. The--you know.” CJ waves her hands. “ _ Him _ .”

She sees the moment when Toby gets it, and he must be tired because it never should have taken him that long. He stands and walks over to rap his knuckles on the window to Sam’s office, gesturing for Sam to come over.

CJ closes the door behind Sam when he walks in, then repeats, again, “He’s here.”

“Did you meet him?”

CJ shakes her head. “He was in with the President. Danny’s asking questions, and Leo wants you to start drafting remarks.”

“Saying what?” Toby asks.

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“We  _ are _ going to meet him, right?” Sam asks.

“I assume at some point,” CJ says. “Leo was pretty clear that the President and...him...get final say in how this happens, but if Danny keeps poking around and the wrong thing leaks, we may not have that option.”

“What do we do when the President’s”--Sam waves a hand in lieu of saying the next word--“is stationed somewhere top secret? I can’t imagine we can just say, here he is, now he’s going to literally disappear off the face of the earth for the next year.”

“Sam--”

“I’m just saying, there’s no way this ends well.”

\--

Zoey’s first thought upon seeing the man with her dad is that he’s handsome. Her second thought is that he looks like Elizabeth.

There was a piece of her that didn’t think this was real, not really, and that piece dies a swift death when she actually looks him in the face and sees how much he resembles her family.

Next to her, her mom gasps, “He looks like my father.” And then she strides towards him and says, “You must be John.”

He gives an uncomfortable twitch of a nod and says, “Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m Abigail.” She smiles at him. “Jed said you flew in this morning. Where are you stationed?”

“That’s, uh, classified, ma’am.” There’s another twitch of his shoulders. “But I flew in from Colorado. And before that I was stationed in Antarctica.”

“Antarctica?” her mom asks.

“Yes, ma’am.” He shoots her what’s clearly an attempt at a smile. “I’ve hit every continent, now.”

“Oh, this is ridiculous,” Elizabeth says, and then she marches forward, past their mom, to say, “Hi, I’m Elizabeth. I’m your older sister.”

“I--” He gives her a dumbfounded look. “It’s nice to meet you, ma’am.”

“Why don’t we all sit down,” her dad suggests, and in short order they’re all sitting around the living room, looking at each other.

He sits in a chair. To Zoey’s eyes, he looks like he doesn’t want to be near any of them. Zoey doesn’t know how she feels about him, so she can’t really blame him. This is a hell of a family to be part of.

So, when it becomes clear nobody knows what to say, Zoey says, “Well, this is weird.”

He smiles, just a little, and it’s a real smile. She’ll take it.

“I’m Zoey Bartlet, by the way.”

“John Sheppard.”

“What do you do in the Air Force?”

Another smile. “I’m a pilot. Mostly helicopters, though I’ve also flown F-16s and a V-22 Osprey.”

“I wouldn’t think you would do a lot of flying in Antarctica.”

“You’d be surprised.” The smile is still there, and he looks a little more relaxed now, and her mom shoots her a pleased look. “Ground travel is nearly impossible on most of it, and there are almost no roads, so most transportation is by air. I was stationed at McMurdo Air Force Base, and my job was mostly transporting researchers by helicopter.”

“I guess the Air Force is a good place to be a pilot,” Zoey says, then wants to hit herself for saying something so inane.

But he just says, “It is.”

“Any good stories?” she asks.

The corner of his mouth ticks up, but all he says is, “Nothing I’m allowed to talk about.”

Just another set of secrets in their family, Zoey thinks, but she’d take these secrets if they mean she gets a long-last brother along with them.

And maybe, she thinks, having Edward back will make her dad chill just a tiny bit. He’s apparently been overprotective since forever, but losing Edward made it so much worse. Or so the stories go.

“Was the military always your dream?” her mom asks, and she sounds almost normal and only a little bit like she wants to leap out of her chair and wrap John/Edward in a hug and never let go.

He looks at her mom, looking a little startled, then says, “Flying was always my dream, and the Air Force was the best way to manage that. It just happened that I’m not terrible at it.”

“I’d say you’re a little more than not terrible,” her dad says.

“You’ve seen my record, sir” he says.

“I have seen your record,” her dad says. 

John/Edward has a ‘doesn’t want to argue with the President of the United States’ look, so Zoey saves him by asking, “Can you at least tell us the coolest thing you’ve ever flown?”

“I can’t,” he says, and he’s smiling apologetically. “But the strangest to fly is definitely the V-22 Osprey. It’s a tiltrotor aircraft, and it has two rotors here and here.” He illustrates two things next to each other with his hands. “It’s a bit like a helicopter you can fly with the speed and the range of a plane. Or a plane you can take off like a helicopter, I suppose.”

“Any chance I can get a ride in one of those?”

He laughs at the same time her dad says, “Not on my life.”

“I don’t think they’re available for civilian flights,” John/Edward offers. 

“Were you--” Her mom makes a face, then asks, “Was your childhood good? Was your family good to you?”

John/Edward opens his mouth, then closes it again, and Zoey thinks, oh, shit. But then, sounding amused, he says, “You probably know of them, actually. Patrick Sheppard, of Sheppard Industries?”

“The energy magnate?” Elizabeth asks.

“The very same.”

“And they were good to you?” her mom presses.

He says, stiffly, “I had a good childhood, ma’am.”

“We should have them over, then. I would love to meet the people who raised you.”

He goes very still, and then he says, very stiffly, “I have not spoken to my family since I joined the Air Force, so I would prefer that you didn’t, ma’am.” Before any of them can figure out what to say to that, he turns to her dad and says, “I apologize if I’m speaking out of turn, sir, but I still have to finish with the debriefing, and I haven’t received orders yet on when I should be returning to Colorado.”

“Returning to--” Her dad looks caught off guard, which is not something she’s used to seeing, and then he says, “Ah. No, sorry, but this takes precedence over that.”

“There’s some urgency--”

“There are national security implications here,” her dad says, and he sounds like when he gave her the talk about not slipping her security. “You’re about to be a very obvious target, and we need to figure that out before you go anywhere. But you should probably meet my staff, and I should probably pretend to do some work today.”

He stands, and John/Edward stands as well, and then her mom stands and strides over to him and says, “I’m going to give you a hug.”

He looks awkwardly tall in her arms, and very uncomfortable, neither hugging her back nor pulling away. There’s something so sad, Zoey thinks, about this man--her brother--who looks like he doesn’t know what to do with a hug.

As soon as he and her father, Elizabeth turns to the rest of them and says, flatly, “He hates us.”

“Would you be thrilled to find out you were the President’s kid?” Ellie asks quietly. “We’re not exactly the ideal family to be part of.”

“It’s not all bad,” her mom protests. “We’ll figure it out. He just needs to get to know us.”

“Assuming he doesn’t steal a helicopter to get away from us, first.”

\--

John would really like about half an hour to himself, and maybe a bottle of some of Zalenka’s rotgut. He has to settle for walking one step behind the president as they power walk through the White House and breathing in the way his very temporary therapist taught him 20 years ago.

Patrick Sheppard isn’t his biological father.

It’s not actually a huge surprise, that; there was always a bit of an awkward pause whenever the stories of his birth were told, and there were times when his father would look at him like he wasn’t who he was supposed to be. He always thought that was about his plans to not go to Princeton and then Wharton, but that his parents apparently stole him is not as much of a shock as it should be.

What’s more of a surprise is the fact that his biological parents are the goddamn First Family of the United States. His biological father is the Commander in Chief. He has sisters. He has a  _ mother _ .

“Well,” the President says, “I suppose we could have broken that to you a little more delicately.”

“I’m not sure if there is a delicate way to break that to someone,” John says.

“You’re probably right.” The President stops walking, and the Secret Service settles around him, just far enough away to give the veneer of privacy. “I didn’t want to say this in front of the girls, but I need to know how public you want to make this.”

John wants this to have never happened. He doesn’t want to know this. He doesn’t need a family, and he doesn’t need any complications to getting back to Atlantis. But he’s also a realist, and he knows that nothing stays secret forever. So he asks, “Is there any chance of this not coming out?”

“Five percent, maybe.”

“Is there any chance of minimizing the impact?”

“My Communications Director will be able to give you a better idea of that, but I think we can do something about that.”

John feels his shoulders hunching, and he fights back to proper posture. That’s a stance he learned at the knee of his father.

“I’d just rather this not blow up in anyone’s face,” he explains.

“Talk to my Communications Director.”

John hesitates, then asks, “What do you want, sir?”

“I’d like you to stop calling me sir, for one thing,” the President says, but he’s smiling. “I don’t make my kids call me sir. My priority is whatever will keep us from losing you again. Talk to my Communications Director.”

They arrive at the Oval Office, and the President calls for his senior staff, and then the two of them end up awkwardly standing in the middle of the room.

“I can ruin Sheppard Industries,” the President says suddenly.

John blinks at him. “Sir?”

“I know why people sound like that when they say they had a good childhood, son,” he says. “It’s not because they’re reminiscing about the good times they had. You don’t have to talk about it. But the offer’s there.”

John doesn’t know what to say to that, but the last thing he wants to do is talk about his family. They already know more about his family than almost anyone he knows, and of all the people he doesn’t want knowing about how occasionally shitty his dad was, his biological family is at the top of the list.

There’s a knock, and then the door opens and the young man sticks his head in to say, “They’re here, sir.”

The President waves a hand. “Send them in.”

Four people file into the room: three men and a woman, all white, all older than twenty-five and younger than forty-five. Once the door is closed behind them, the President says, “This is my senior staff. Toby Ziegler, my Communications Director; CJ Cregg, my Press Secretary, Josh Lyman, my Deputy Chief of Staff, and Sam Seaborn, my Deputy Communications Director. Everyone, this is Major John Sheppard.”

“He’s--?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” the woman who is probably either CJ Cregg or Sam Seaborn says, striding over to shake his hand. She has a nice firm handshake and is almost as tall as he is. “Welcome to the White House.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Okay,” the President says, “go figure out how to make this work. And play nice, Toby; I want to keep him.”

“Yes, sir,” one of the men says--early 40s, John thinks, dark hair, a little rumpled. He reminds John a little of Rodney.

And then the President walks over and touches John’s shoulder, and John goes very still. “I’m very glad we found you,” he says. “I want to make sure you know that.”

\--

The President’s son looks like someone just hit him over the head with a two-by-four.

It’s not the President’s comment that did it, CJ doesn’t think--he’s looked like that the whole time. 

“First time in the White House?” she asks as they walk through the hallway towards Toby’s office; hers is going to be strictly off limits for him until they have this all sorted out, because she’s not giving Danny any more ammo.

“First time here in uniform, ma’am,” he answers. “I got the class trip tour a long time ago.”

“A bit different from this side of things.”

The President’s son is ushered through the communications bullpen by the four of them like he’s a duckling and they’re all his duck parents, and he gamely ignores the stares and the one person who mutters, “Maybe he’s there to oversee the orgy,” just loud enough for CJ to hear.

She really hopes they don’t repeat that to Danny Concannon.

Finally, after that feels like the world’s longest walk of shame, they get him into Toby’s office and get the door closed, which doesn’t get him to relax a little, but at least Toby looks marginally less like he’s going to vibrate out of his own skin.

“You know,” the President’s son muses, apropos of nothing, “I really started today thinking I was about to be court-martialed. I haven’t decided yet if this is an improvement.”

“Please don’t say things like that,” CJ tells him. “At least not where anyone can hear, and preferably not at all.”

“Why?” Toby asks, sitting down on his couch. He grabs his stress ball.

“Why?”

“Why did you think you were going to be court-martialed?”

“I’m not actually sure if you’re cleared to know that.”

“We are,” Toby assures him. The President’s son continues to look politely doubtful, so Toby asks, “So, how are you hoping this goes?”

The President’s son hesitates, then sits down on the couch, as far away as he can get from Toby. He looks uncomfortable, still, but he’s lounging in that sort of pretend-blasé way men have sometimes. “I’m stationed somewhere classified, and I want to keep being stationed there. So whatever keeps this from jeopardizing that.”

“Our best bet,” Toby tells him, “is to get ahead of this. There are already reporters poking around, and if we’re the ones who put you out there, we get to control the narrative.”

“The biggest thing is how much we tell them about you,” CJ continues. “If we walk you out there in front of the cameras and announce that you’re...what you are, everyone will know, but we can get control faster. The President has made it pretty clear his rules about the press bothering his family, and we’re willing to be draconian about that. If you don’t want your name or face out there, we can just announce that you exist and want your privacy, and that will hold them off for some time. But they  _ will _ go looking, and sooner or later someone will connect the dots and figure out that it’s you. And we’ll have a lot less of a say on what the initial messaging is.”

“What do you recommend?”

“Better to get it out there,” Toby says. “But we’ll need to know what we’re going to need to head off.”

“I have a meeting with the DCCC,” Josh says suddenly. “You all got this?”

“I think we’ll survive without you.”

“So my best option,” the President’s son says once the door is shut again behind Josh, “is to stand up in front of the press and announce that I’m the biological son of the President of the United States?”

“The best option is for the President to stand in front of the press with the First Lady on one side of him and you on the other side of him wearing that dress uniform of yours, and for him to announce that, against all odds, he’s been reunited with his long lost son. We’re going to try to avoid words like ‘biological’ and also ‘kidnapped’ and ‘would have been willing to bomb a small third world country to find you’.”

“I think that last one is more a phrase,” Toby tells her. 

“My point, you pedant, is that this is going to be formal, and we’re going to make it clear that the entire First Family is glad to have him home.”

“There may be some pushback from my family.”

“Believe me, they’re all glad to have you back,” CJ tells him. 

He blinks at her, then laughs and says, “Not that family. But Patrick Sheppard isn’t exactly the most low profile person in the world.”

“Oh, shit,” Sam breathes next to her. “I’ve met you before. I was little, I mean really little, and you were with your dad and your younger brother--Derek, David, something like that.”

“Good memory.”

“And this is Patrick Sheppard as in--”

“Industrialist, energy magnate, multi-millionaire,” Sam supplies. “At least he’s a Republican.”

“A Republican stole the President’s kid. Now we know what we’re definitely not running with,” Toby says.

“My only point is that we don’t need to worry about losing fundraiser dollars by pissing him off.”

“Anything else that we need to know?” Toby asks the President’s son. CJ really is going to have to start thinking of him by his name at some point, but she’s not quite there yet.

“I have two black marks on my record.”

“You became a major with two black marks on your record?”

He smirks at CJ. “I’m a very good pilot.”

Okay, then. It’s not like this is a nomination they can rescind if he’s too controversial, so whatever it is, they’ll figure out how to deal with it.

“Married once, divorced once. She’s not going to be a problem.”

“Why’d you get divorced?” Toby asks.

“Irreconcilable differences.”

“Adultery?”

“The fact that I spent almost all of our marriage on missions I wasn’t allowed to talk about.” Despite the interrogation, the President’s son seems to be growing more relaxed here; his body language has shifted from practiced casualness to something a little more genuine.”

“Is she likely to talk to the press?”

“Not unless she wants to be fired and probably blacklisted.”

“Government?”

“Somewhere at DHS, or at least she was when we were still married.”

“This is good,” Sam says. “If your history was too perfect, it would sound fake. People would go looking for something, and from what I understand, we don’t really want them digging too deep. But with a few flaws, a few imperfections...”

“Thanks,” the President’s son says dryly.

Sam makes a face. “I didn’t mean--”

“People have said worse,” he says. “Believe me, I’m a lot harder than that to offend. Other than what I just told you, the biggest issue is probably going to be how much of my military record is blacked out.”

“That, we can deal with.”

\--

It takes them three hours to put together a plan. John would’ve thought it would take longer, but apparently they have contingencies for this sort of thing, or are very good at coming up with what to say on very short notice.

He wonders what Col Carter and Maj Davis are doing, or if they’re still sitting outside of McGarry’s office like the good officers they are.

It’s ten minutes before the press conference is set to start when the First Lady looks him over and says, critically, “Your uniform doesn’t fit. Is there any way we can get him a uniform that fits?”

“Not in ten minutes, ma’am,” CJ Cregg says. She looks John over, too, and says, “You are very thin. I hadn’t noticed that before.”

It’s what being on intermittent rationing does, and he’s never managed to get his weight back up to what it had been before. He’s mostly muscle now.

All of that is classified, so he just says, “Yes, ma’am,” and hopes they move on before someone starts commenting on the fact that his hair isn’t really regulation length. It’s not like anyone gives a shit in Atlantis, and even if they did, he’s the CO there. Or was, at least--fuck if he knows wheter he’s going to be sent back.

He should call Rodney, at some point. He probably should have called Rodney before all this, but they had strongly suggested he not reach out to anyone.

“I daresay they might be a little more preoccupied with the idea of who he is,” the President says, “than how much he weighs.” The President looks him over, too, then. “Though you are very thin.”

“First impressions are very important,” Ms. Cregg says. She looks around for her assistant. “Carol, do we have time for the makeup person to touch up his face and make him seem a little less gaunt?”

The assistant makes a face and disappears, only to reappear barely two minutes later with the tall black woman who had been powdering his face twenty minutes earlier. He doesn’t want her hands on his face again. He barely managed to keep from flinching away from every touch the first time.

She pulls out a palette of something vaguely skin colored and starts patting it around under his eyes, and he holds himself very very still because he doesn’t want to lose his shit. He’s had some bad experiences with strangers’ hands on his face.

After an agonizing three minutes, she steps bad and says, “Presentable.”

“He still looks thin,” Ms. Cregg says.

“Nothing I can do about that,” the woman says. “You just need to put some meat on his bones. But at least now he looks like he’s slept sometime this decade. Good enough for the cameras, at least. For whatever it is you need him for.”

“Thank you, Imani,” Ms. Cregg says.

Imani nods to the President and First Lady, says, “Sir, ma’am,” and slips away again.

“Well,” the President says. “This is it.”

“Yes, sir,” Ms. Cregg says. To John, she says, “I’ll be there if you need me, but the President will be doing most of the talking. There’s going to be a lot of flashing lights. It’s better if you try not to blink too much; it tends to show up oddly on television. Try not to fidget too much either. Basically just try to stand there and not do anything, and you’ll do fine.”

“I can do that, ma’am.”

“That puts you a head and shoulders above most of the rest of the people who walk into the room.”

The assistant--Carol, John thinks--says, “CJ.”

“Right,” CJ says. “Okay, sir, ma’am, uh, sir, it’s time.”

The First Lady reaches out and straightens the President’s tie. The President reaches over and pats John on the shoulders. John tries very hard not to flinch.

Carol opens the door. There’s a mess of flashing lights and shouts, and the four of them walk into the room.

“The President of the United States.”

**Author's Note:**

> My deepest apologies for whatever this is. I will get back to my regularly scheduled writing soon.
> 
> I hope you're all doing as well as it possible, in these times. Take a breath and keep going. We will be through this eventually.
> 
> (I made a few small edits because I had done the AF rank abbreviations wrong because I learned today that they don't use periods at the end. Also I learned today that Army officer rank abbreviations are in all caps, and I kind of hate that.)


End file.
